Swim Workouts

Monday, the masters group was off so I swam with MSA. Don't know exactly how much but it was around 5000m. After the swim, we headed out to a rec center on a local army base with our bikes and running shoes and did a small triathlon. It was pretty much 4 x 8 minutes out, 8 minutes back alternating run/bike. Kind of nice to be able to win some after these kids have been making me look bad in the pool . Of course, I paid a nasty price this morning. My legs can hardly kick at all. We also ended up swimming short course which I now dislike. Nothing really wrong about short course, its just that I get into a better rhythm doing long course. Between swims, we did plenty of hanging around pools, eating and shooting off fireworks. I was pretty tired through most of it. Glad to get the old routine back.

Nasty crick in my neck just wouldn't go away. Things went slow today but I got though another 6000+ meters. I'm over 36000 for the week which is likely the most I've ever done in a week before. Might do a little more tomorrow but it won't be much. Pool is open for swim teams on Monday so I'll sneak in with the Madison swimmers to keep the distance up.

I'm adapting to the extra distance. Trying to make sure I'm not finishing up with lots of garbage yardage. It hurts but not as much as I thought it would. Will hopefully feel better with a couple days off next week.

Did a little dryland last night. Going to try that 3 nights a week over the next 2 weeks. Probably started too late. Made some suggested changes to my breast stroke pull. It feels better but I'm using different muscles. Should be able to adapt before I taper.

Got a little more than I expected today. After the main workout, I moved to an age grouper lane. After a couple hundred easy, the coach said: ok... 4 x 100 on 1:25. At this point, I was closing in on 6k. I decided to just go for it and see what happened. Suprisingly, I had no issues keeping up. After that she went to 4 x 100 on 1:20 at which point I was done.

Up to 6000m today. Felt pretty good. We will see how good it feels at the end of the week. Had to swim with age groupers at the end of practice for the last few hundred meters. I always feel like a whale swimming with younger kids.

The lawyer said that with adoptions, once you leave the hospital, things are almost always final even if they aren't "legally" final. It was a relief to drive off even though the birth mother gave every indication that she had no intention of changing her mind.

The baby went to sleep at 10:00 last night and woke up at 4:00 am this morning as I was getting ready to go to the pool. My wife and I are bewildered... none of our others had ever done that. Gotta be a catch somewere.

Light turnout at the pool. Swim teams were all gone and I suppose there was a big triathlon somewhere because the lap swimmers were absent as well. We were fortunate that they kept it long course. I managed a 43.5 50 breast stroke at the end of practice from a push of with a drag suit. I'd like to get to 40 before I shave and taper. Here's the rest of the workout:

The mother of the child we are adopting went into labor early this morning. Someone today I should be a dad...again. This is our first adoption. Its been an interesting process so far. Hopefully all will continue to go welll.

No sign of the video taken of us yesterday. I guess we were bumped by more important local stories. Felt good today. Did some breast stroke sprints on the choice 50s. Not as fast as I'd like but I was under 45.

Had a great Father's day. The kids got me an acoustic guitar which is good because I'm too lazy to plug in my electric guitar. Plans worked out so that I got to play soccer last night. I'm not terribly good at soccer but I love playing the game. The problem with soccer is injuries. At some point, my heel got injured and I played on it for too long. Didn't affect my swimming much but I got a painful reminder of last night every time I took a breast stroke kick or pushed off a wall.

A man from a local television station showed up this morning with a camera. I have no idea what it was for but he took a lot of footage of our lane. I suppose I might end up on the local news tonight.

Just under 32000 meters this week. That's about where I wanted to be. My weight is slowly coming down. I'm at 185 right now and would like to be 175 before I taper. Would have like to do a little better than 1:17 on the free but I did do a 50 br in just under :42. That's about where I want to be with no dive, a drag suit and no taper.

I used to have no catch. Stiff straight wrist all the way through my stroke. Someone finally pointed it out to me yesterday. Sure makes a big difference. It also works a slightly different muscle group which is now very sore. I'm excited about developing this further. Gives me a lot of confidence going into Nationals.

Dave was back today so I drafted a lot. It is easier but I'm not sure if it helps me get faster. Lots of varied breathing sets. I stink at breathing on my left side and have avoided fixing that for years. Brooke decided it has become his personal project to fix that. He seems to think that more left side breathing will work our some of the stroke problems I'm having. I'm open to it so I give it my best effort.

I've switched over all my fly to breast stroke until nationals. I figure I'm not swimming fly at nationals so there isn't much reason to train hard at it for the next month. Will probably convert back to free drill as well... or at least use a breathing pattern.